Texas has the fourth-highest rate of adult incarceration in the country. But the number of incarcerated juveniles in Texas dropped by over a third in a recent ten-year span.
A recent study, The Comeback States, shows that juvenile incarceration in Texas dropped by 37 percent from 2001 to 2010. A Texas Civil Rights Project spokesman says that many conservatives have backed away from incarceration as a catch-all punishment for juveniles, as the practice has become associated with high costs and poor outcomes.
